POSITIVE PSYCHOLOGY AND POSITIVE ORIENTATION

Vesna Petrovic, Faculty of Law and Business Studies, Novi Sad, Department of Business Psychology

Abstract

Positive psychology represents a 21st century movement in psychology. It is a
psychology aimed at researching optimal human functioning that empirically studies, first and
foremost, the concept of happiness, in addition to life satisfaction, optimism, virtues and suchlike
notions, which are used to measure the growth and development of human potential and
subjective well-being. This line of conceptualization and research is based on the disease model
and opens up new perspectives for both psychology as a science as well as the people it is
intended for. This paper elaborates the basic ideas and results of certain explorations relative to
positive psychology and positive orientation which comprises optimism, self-esteem and life
satisfaction.